Oxfam targets the top 10 food producers over women's rights

Behind the Brands – part of Oxfam’s GROW campaign to fix the broken food system – for the first time ranks the agricultural policies, public commitments and supply chain oversight of Nestlé, Coca Cola, Unilever, Pepsico, Mars, Mondelez, Associated British Foods (ABF), Danone, General Mills and Kellogg’s.  

Together these companies make $1 billion a day. Oxfam says they "are failing millions of people in developing countries who supply land, labour, water and commodities needed to make their products."

The Behind the Brands campaign will launch in more than 12 countries including New Zealand, the US, Mexico, China, Brazil and across Europe.

 Barry Coates, Executive Director of Oxfam New Zealand, said, “New Zealand consumers of these [companies’] products need assurances that the food and drink they buy is produced according to acceptable standards. This must include the impact on women, small farmers, workers, land, water and the climate. It is essential that there is transparency in company practice and policy set by these international brand leaders.”

While some of the “Big 10” have publicly committed to women’s rights, none have committed to eliminating discrimination against women throughout their supply chains. The campaign’s first public action will target Nestlé, Mondelez and Mars for their failure to address inequality faced by women who grow cocoa for their chocolate products. Oxfam is also releasing a brief with first-hand accounts of the inequality that women cocoa growers face. Oxfam is urging the three companies to do more to know and show how women are treated in their supply chains, create an action plan to address inequality for women in their supply chains and engage in advocacy to influence other powerful actors to do the same. Oxfam has written to the headquarters of these companies in Australasia urging them to respond constructively to this call. 

A response to the Can't Feed Don't Breed Brigade

On Monday the NZ Herald started a week-long series looking at the gap between rich and poor in Auckland.  On the first day they examined two families - one well-off and one struggling.  The first had two kids, 10 and 13, the second three children, all aged 3 and under.

The article was widely shared online by leftie progressive types I follow and I was startled by some of the responses, particularly on the issue of the struggling family including three children.

Comments such as these were made:

"Agree though that life is all about choices and looking at the big picture of deciding to have 3 kids (and another from a prior relationship) to support when not in a strong enough financial position points to perhaps the wrong choices being made along the way."

"I agree that an average worker should expect to be able to support a family on average pay, but three or more kids I think is pushing it. You shouldn't enter into a situation you can't afford to maintain, that's irresponsible in my view."

When did we decide that having three kids constitutes a large family?

In the whole of human history there has been a massive period of time with average family sizes of more than 3 children born to one couple.  In many countries in the world now women are likely to have more than two children over the course of their fertile years, indeed the world average fertility rate is a bit over 2.5 on all three measures Wikipedia lists.   Why is it unreasonable to expect to be able to have three children and be able to get by in Aotearoa New Zealand, a comparatively well-off place to live?

What also bugs me is how, like with so many issues that come up through a feminist prism, this is about pretending that you know more about someone else's life than they know about it themselves.  Second guessing the life choices of others is a game I'd rather not play.  There could be many reasons why people have 2< children (or indeed any children, one child, no children).  Maybe there was a contraceptive failure, or cultural pressure to have a big family, or a desire to have children of different sexes, or they had the financial resources at the time of conception, or any range of other reasons that are theirs and not yours, or mine.

And what's are the assumptions made by those saying the equivalent of "you shouldn't breed more mouths than you can feed"?  

• People's financial situations don't change over time - or at least they don't get worse.
• Someone can totally foresee how much more each child will add to their outgoings.
• Contraception is fool-proof and freely available and widely used and not socially, religiously or culturally discouraged for anyone.
• Abortion for economic reasons is legal and accessible.

None of these is an accurate assumption.  Taken together they in fact look quite ludicrous, and the last one in particular I find quite chilling.  Those advocating for the termination of pregnancies which are going to put financial pressure on a parent, based on projected income, well, there's a name for that.  

And if you don't take it that far, if you merely encourage people who are on tight incomes to end pregnancies, then you are actually asking them to break to law, because, as we frequently discuss on this blog, an abortion for reasons other than the physical or mental health of the pregnant person is illegal in this country.  While personally I'll be working to change that law, it isn't likely that abortions on economic grounds will be allowable in the near future.

So if the "Can't Feed Don't Breed" brigade don't want to force poor people to have abortions, or even encourage them to break the law, then what's the next thing?  Use contraception?  Not 100% effective, so no guarantee of children resulting to impoverish their siblings and parents.  Oh wait I know, don't have consensual heterosexual sex!  At least not during the fertile years - so that's never for men and not until post-menopause for women.  This would certainly be good for that Homosexual Recruitment Drive we've all heard so much about.  

Let's not lose sight of the original point of discussion that the Herald article was about - the widening income disparity in Auckland.  How about we actually look at the real problem, rather than getting distracted.  The issue here is not too many children but too little money; low incomes, whether it be from paid employment or social welfare or a combination of both.

It's not that long ago that most people in this country could expect a reasonable standard of living for their family based on the income of one full time worker, even with three or more children in the household.  The area I represent at Auckland Council, Puketapapa, had the 18th lowest median income in the Herald's stats, despite having a lower percentage of people on benefits (10.5%) than many of the suburbs higher up.  I live here, in one of the poorer suburbs, and I work all over this part of town.  This gap is not about the choices of individuals, it is about a system that distributes wealth in a way that is all wrong.  We simply must lift incomes.  And we do that not by bagging people for having kids but by investing in education, in infrastructure, in social welfare, in job creation, in innovation, in pay equity and, in the public sector, in actual pay to public servants of all hues.  Focusing on procreation is a distraction, not a solution.

quick hit: on women's participation

a couple of links on women's participation in politics and business. first this call for more women to have strong political roles:

More than 20 of the world’s most powerful women called for more political participation for women as a crucial step for democracy, peace and sustainable economic and social development at an event during the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly today.

[...]

“We are in an age of participation and every political party should make room for women to play a greater role,” Hilary Clinton said. “When we liberate women we boost economies; human rights cannot be stopped.”

on the latter point, there has been some research from the university of waikato, proving yet again what we already know: that companies with women on their boards of directors are more profitable than those that don't:

Dr Stuart Locke, director of the university’s Institute for Business Research, said research showed women directors are good for business.

The institute analysed 10 years of data from New Zealand Stock Exchange companies and found that increasing the number of women on boards increased financial performance.

The institute’s study looked at performance measured by rate of return on assets for companies in New Zealand. It looked at a number of variables relating to corporate governance including the size of boards, the number of women and other measures.

"We found that the number of women on the boards was positively correlated to performance. Those companies that had higher performance – not just greater profit but greater profit on the assets they owned – had more women on the board. That was a statistically significant result," Locke said. The study did not explain how women boosted financial performance, as it was purely a financial study.

of course i'm one of those who thinks we should have diversity because it's the right thing to do, not solely because it has financial or economic benefits. but it's nice to know the latter is true as well.

the usefulness of gift duty

gift duty is set to be abolished later this year. the due date is 1 october, but with all the fluffing around & the various issues to be considered, it's looking likely that there will be a delay.

i tend to assume that people know what gift duty is & how it works. but just in case you don't, basically a person can only gift $27,000 a year in cash or forgiveness of debt before a 4% duty kicks in. these days, so many people are transferring their major income-earning assets to a trust (big mistake for most people, but that's a story for another day). so the trust owes them back the value of the assets they've transferred.

this isn't helpful, especially if you want to protect your assets from resthome subsidies, spouses, creditors, people who are suing you for negligence or the like. so people gift off their loan to the trust, so they can personally become asset free and their assets are protected. gift duty has meant that they can't gift off the loan all at once, but have to do it in chunks of $27,000 if they want to avoid the duty.

the thing with trusts, though, is that people tend to manage them so badly and seem to immediately forget that assets belonging to the trust are no longer actually their own. they behave as though they still own the assets, which makes them very vulnerable to trust-busting by creditors, the IRD, and other beneficiaries. and there are a heap of cases going through the courts. so removing gift duty is not necessarily going to mean much, if your trust isn't run as a totally separate entity from yourself.

but there's one thing that has really been bothering me today about the removal of gift duty, and it relates to elder abuse. i know that some of our senior citizens are treated horrendously and can be put under enourmous pressure to part with their finances. gift duty is a actually a protection for them - it's much more difficult to force (or nag or push) them into gifting off huge chunks of their wealth when there is tax to pay. they have the protection of the law as a reason to not gift off any more than that amount.

when it comes to decisions about tax, it's disturbing that some people only look at the economic and legal implications, but not the social ones. i'd actually like to see a social impact assessment done for most major tax changes. because the effects on people's lives will often go way beyond the economic.

budget links

some budget links that might be of interest.

here's pinky agnew at the pre-budget protest of around 1500 people, with a poem:



here's a short clip of david do on education:



and his quick summary of the impact on student loans:

• total savings of $447 million over four years
• restricting eligibility to students overdue with payments,
• limiting students aged 55 and over to borrowing only for tuition fees
• removing part-time students to borrow for course costs.
• repayment holiday for borrowers based overseas is shortened to 1 year from 3 years
• definition of ‘income’ broadened for student loan repayment purposes

here's the council of trade unions on the zero stimulus budget:

Today’s Budget does nothing for jobs when unemployment is high and risks prompting a return to recession. It forecasts low growth continuing this year, and that even by March 2012, unemployment will still remain high at 5.7 percent.

Bill Rosenberg, CTU Economist said “Despite this gloomy outlook for the coming year, the government will be spending little more than last year. This amounts to a $2 billion cut in real terms when inflation forecast, at 3.1 percent is taken into account. Even Treasury says that this will provide zero stimulus, and the government is resting on assumptions of growth resulting from reconstruction in Christchurch. There is a real risk of continuing high unemployment or even going back into recession.”

“We do need to face up to debt but when it is the third lowest in the OECD, it should not have trumped the immediate needs of people who are struggling, and a stagnant and fragile economy. It ignores the hard times that many families are facing at present,” said Rosenberg.

here is phil goff on "the least imaginative" & "lack-lustre" budget that breaks some major elections promises from 2008:



and here is david cunliffe on radio nz's checkpoint (17.38, 19/5/11).

here's bernard hickey (and yes, i'm not a great fan, but this bit does make a lot of sense) on the government's decision to bet on growth:

[John Key & Bill English] will argue the Christchurch earthquake rebuild and an historic boom in commodity prices will power GDP growth to over 4% over the next couple of years.

This all seems sensible until you look at the track record of these forecasts in the last three years since the global financial crisis. Every economic forecast by the Treasury under-estimated the impact of an epic change in the way New Zealanders think about debt and spending since the crisis. In May 2008 Treasury forecast growth rates for the next three years of 1.5%, 2.3% and 3.2%. Instead we got -1.1%, -0.4% and -0.1%.

The inaccuracy of these forecasts isn't just Treasury's doing. All the economic forecasters have missed out on a structural shift.

New Zealanders have stopped borrowing overseas to pump money through the housing market into consumer spending, which makes up almost 70% of the economy. It has been stalled for three years and there is no indication it is picking up quickly. New Zealand households have got the message, even if the government hasn't, that they can't live beyond their means.

and keith ng is brilliant as ever, on the kiwisaver cuts and an interesting donut thingy.

hat tipped to all my facebook friends who have directed me to these links.

standing up to the banks

it's been a little while since i posted here - partly because of blogger going pear-shaped last week but mostly because we have been having so many wonderful posts from our new grouping of brilliant women. i've been sitting back and enjoying everyone's contributions.

today i went to a professional development course. like all professionals, accountants are required to keep up-to-date by attending a certain number of hours of training during the year. many of the issues covered at these courses are mind-numbingly dull, though presenters will usually do their best to liven up proceedings. but really, how exciting can you make changes to private use adjustment calculations for GST? not very.

the course today was a rural update, and started off pretty dull. mostly because i find it hard to get enthused about changes in commodity prices and predictions about fonterra's payouts over the coming 2-3 years, what sheep & beef prices are doing, and the like.

well, they have a little bit of interest in that my mind immediately equates this rise in prices to people going hungry and struggling to make ends meet. and discussions about the growing demand for our dairy exports from the middle classes in china and india make me wonder if the middle classes in those countries are going to price out the poor in our country, so that people here will have to be middle class to afford butter, cheese and maybe even fresh milk. it certainly looks like this will be the case based on current projections, and there is absolutely no strategy or thought being put into ensuring that everyone in our country will enjoy the fruits of our natural resources. as well as the fact that the lower classes in india & china deserve to enjoy quality dairy produce just as much as anyone else.

but no, we didn't really discuss those issues. we were given these economic updates and forecasts so that we could think about tax planning for our farming clients and how they were going to deal with all the extra income. for many of them, it's a very nice problem to have and some will happily rail against the amount of tax they have to pay and the lazy bludgers they are forced to support through the extortion that is the tax system. i can't think of anything i could say that would encourage to view things differently.

but there are another group, and quite a concerning number who are presently up to their necks in bank loans. for them, it's not such a nice story. now, it would be easy to say that these particular farmers are fully responsible for taking on too much debt, but that would hide the role played by banks.

our presenter today gave us some really interesting insights into the working of the major banks in relation to the rural sector. between 3-5 years ago banks were aggressively pushing debt onto people, and particularly in the rural sector. there was a high degree of competition between two banks in particular competing against each other, which lead to these banks probably approving debt that they otherwise wouldn't have done.

but more than that, it lead to some pretty unethical banking practices, and there is no evidence that these kinds of things have stopped. i've had experience of our clients being pushed to buy fully geared rental properties, who are now really struggling. they can't afford to pay the loans, and the value of the properties have dropped so that selling is not going to help them out of their situation. unlike in america, they can't drop the keys off at the bank & walk away debt-free.

it has been equally bad in the rural sector. we were given an example of a farmer who was constantly nagged to buy a neighbouring property. the person from the bank had done all the numbers, and showed that the purchase was completely viable if a portion of the existing farm was sold. the farmer was assured that there would be no hiccups, and the farmer's solicitor was also assured that nothing could possibly go wrong.

except that once the sale & purchase agreement was signed and the $900,000 deposit was paid, the bank decided they weren't going to lend money for the full purchase. in the meantime, the existing farm hadn't done so well and the bank forced a sale on that property, at a loss of $1.5 million. the farmer also lost the $900,000 deposit. the bank person, well they got to keep the commission on selling the debt to the farmer, and suffered no harm. neither did the bank.

our presenter raised the very concerning issue of bank staff, who are going to personally benefit by way of a commission if a deal goes ahead, also acting as budget advisor and in this case pretty much acting as a real estate agent as well. the conflict of interest is huge. the standing that some of these staff have by virtue of their position in the bank is a major factor in creating a sense of trust in their clients, so that clients don't seek independent advice.

there were other examples of the commissioned staff making promises that were subsequently not kept - such as a promise that no changes to the overdraft would be made if further indebtedness was taken on, only for the client to find that their overdraft limit had been reduced from $100,000 to $50,000 as a result of the loan.

on a wider level, a certain one of our foreign-owned banks who has been involved in pushing debt in the rural sector has now decided that asia is a much more profitable prospect, and is tightening up the money supply. given the increase in commodity prices, farmers will be pushed to repay principle at a level that will be very difficult for them to manage, and they are unlikely to obtain further loans for large the large tax payouts that are looming.

the best part of this presentation though, was hearing this presenter advocate for struggling clients. he encouraged us to stand up against the banks by ensuring any budgeting was done by us, and by making sure we were in the room any time banking staff were meeting with our clients. more than that, he said we should do it without charge. i think that's the first time i've heard a presenter say that, and it was really genuinely meant. he didn't mean that we should do screeds of work for free, but that we should consider giving some of our time to ensure that clients were protected and helped to get out of debt through careful plannning. accountants with a social conscience - yay!

i'd dearly love to give this man's name, but i didn't get his permission. the room was packed though, and i really hope that a lot of the people present do take this on board.

wages for housework

i was directed to this article by silvia federici, which discusses the concept of paying wages for housework, and other issues around the structure of society. it's quite dated now, and i think feminists have been grappling with some of the issues she accuses them of ignoring for some time now. it's a pretty long piece, but i do like the points she puts in favour of wages for housework.

anyway, here is an excerpt:

We believed that the women’s movement should not set models to which women would have to conform, but rather devise strategies to expand our possibilities. For once getting a job is considered necessary to our liberation the woman who refuses to exchange her work in a kitchen for work in a factory is inevitably branded as backward and, beside being ignored, her problems are turned into her own fault. It is likely that many women who were later mobilized by the New Moral Majority could have been won to the movement if it had addressed their needs. Often when an article appeared about our campaign, or we were invited to talk on a radio program, we received dozens of letters by women who would tell us about their lives or at times would simply write: “Dear Sir, tell me what I have to do to get wages for housework.” Their stories were always the same. They worked like slaves with no time left and no money of their own. And there were older women starving on Supplementary Security Income (SSI) who would ask us whether they could keep a cat, because they were afraid that if the social worker found out their benefits would be cut. What did the women’s movement have to offer to these women? Go out and get a job so that you can join the struggles of the working class? But their problem was that they already worked too much, and eight hours at a cash register or on an assembly line is hardly an enticing proposition when you have to juggle it with a husband and kids at home. As we so often repeated, what we need is more time, more money, not more work. And we need daycare centers, but not just to be liberated for more work, but to be able to take a walk, talk to our friends or go to a women’s meeting.

Wages for housework meant opening a struggle directly on the question of reproduction, and establishing that raising children and taking care of people is a social responsibility. In a future society free from exploitation we will decide how this social responsibility is best absolved and shared among us. In this society where money governs all our relations, to ask for social responsibility is to ask that those who benefit from housework (business and the state as the “collective capitalist”) pay for it. Otherwise we subscribe to the myth-so costly for us women - that raising children and servicing those who work is a private, individual matter and that only “male culture” is to blame for the stifling ways in which we live, love and congregate with each other. Unfortunately the women’s movement has largely ignored the question of reproduction, or offered only individual solutions, like sharing the housework, which do not provide an alternative to the isolated battles many of us have already been waging. Even during the struggle for abortion most feminists fought just for the right not to have children, though this is only one side of control over our bodies and reproductive choice. What if we want to have children but cannot afford to raise them, except at the price of not having any time for ourselves and being continuously plagued by financial worries? For as long as housework goes unpaid, there will be no incentives to provide the social services necessary to reduce our work, as proved by the fact that, despite a strong women’s movement, subsidized day care has been steadily reduced through the 70s.

If only those poor people would stop breeding

Cross posted

The Welfare Working Group was established by Cabinet:

... to undertake an expansive and fundamental review of New Zealand’s welfare system. The Group’s primary task was to identify how to reduce long-term welfare dependency.

In the midst of the Welfare Working Group's final report (downloadable from the Group's homepage), there is a nasty jibe about poor people breeding.

For some people the idea that it is not appropriate to have further children while receiving welfare is a significant change in expectation and will require a very different pattern of welfare use. ...We have found this issue difficult and have given careful consideration to our response. In the long term, the most positive measures to reduce the number of children born to parents relying on welfare payments is to provide more positive alternatives, especially for teen sole parents. The Working Group considers that a component of addressing this issue is providing all parents within the welfare system ready access to free long-acting reversible contraception. ... A majority of members of the Working Group are also in favour of strong signals to parents that a welfare payment is intended to provide temporary support while they get back on their feet and into employment. ... In practice, for most this means taking active steps to avoid pregnancy while receiving Jobseeker Support.

Welfare Working Group final report, p. 77

And if you do have the temerity to have another child while you are already on the benefit, then:

The Working Group suggests that if the changes to the work test requirements do not address the incentives to have additional children while receiving welfare assistance, then the Government may need to consider financial disincentives, say by withholding part or all of the extra payments that come with having an additional child.

Welfare Working Group final report, p. 78

By the way, that 'contraception" is going to be "long-acting reversible contraception" (p. 77, plus footnote 65 on p. 77).

In other words, if you are on the benefit, the government is going to control your fertility.

Wealthy white people have always had a problem with poor people breeding. Many years ago, I watched a documentary by Deepa Dhanraj, "The Legacy of Malthus", in which she argued that the (alleged) problem with the world's population is not the number of children being born, but the distribution of resources. The documentary contained a couple of video clips that revolted me. Two movie stars, both well-fed are white, both with no particular concerns about how to feed and clothe themselves and their children, appeared in commercials urging people to donate to the Population Institute. The Population Institute:

is an international non-profit that educates policymakers and the public about population, and seeks to promote universal access to family planning information, education, and services. Through voluntary family planning, we strive to achieve a world population in balance with a healthy global environment and resource base.

The donations were to enable the Population Institute to provide contraceptives to women in third world countries. A fine and noble purpose, on the surface, perhaps. But the subtext that I heard, loud and clear, was that wealthy white people who were already consuming far more than their share of the world's resources, wanted all those poor brown people to stop breeding. The world would be a much better place for everyone, that is, for the wealthy white people, if poor brown people would stop causing all the problems.

And I am revolted by the wealthly, well-educated, well-resourced people who wrote the Welfare Working Group's final report suggesting that all would be well in this country if only the poor people stopped breeding.

It turns out that the key to decreasing the size of the world's population is not forcing people to use contraceptives, or to have just one child, but to educate and empower women. Ensure that women are educated, ensure that they have the resources and capability to build lives for themselves, and can sustain themselves and their children, and in time, the population will drop. The process is so well known that we have a name for it: "demographic transition."

Educating women is the critical factor in reducing the birth rate. Providing contraceptives turns out to be neither here nor there:

While the bomb has been largely defused, the implication remains that to bring growth down more rapidly we should do the only thing we can do now: fund and promote family planning programs among fast-growing populations. The rest is pie in the sky.

Our response is twofold. First, demographers will tell you that even if average family size in a fast-growing society were cut by half tomorrow, its population would not stop growing until well into the next century. So every solution, including family planning programs, is a long-term one; there are no quick fixes. The second part of our answer is more surprising: simply providing birth control technology through family planning programs doesn't affect population growth all that much.

Individual women on the Domestic Purposes Benefit are not the same as populations. There is no 'demographic transition' for an individual. But 'demographic transition' does provide some clues. The key is to empower women, to ensure that they have the resources the need to obtain and retain a job. That means investing in education and training and childcare. It means pouring far more resources into schools for teenage parents, where young mothers can be sure that their children are being cared for while they finish their secondary education. It means enabling sole parents to access training grants, such as the grant that our Minister of Social Development used herself when she was a sole parent on the DPB. It means truly focusing on giving sole parents a helping hand. And that will be a complex and expensive solution.

Or we could just put all sole parents on the pill. Cheap, simple, and with that nice overtone of punishment.

And there's a final sting in the tail. I know of no 'long-acting, reversible contraception' for men. The Welfare Working Group is making women into gatekeepers of the nation's domestic purposes benefit bill. Except that last time I enquired into the matter, except in very unusual circumstances, it still took two people to make a baby. Why is is only women who are required to take responsibility for keeping the cost of the domestic purposes benefit down?